All Posts Tagged With: "Climate Change"
SEC petitioned to warn companies against making false and misleading claims on global warming
Misinformation puts investors at risk!
It’s not just Gore, IPCC and Mainstream Media scaring the pants of people. Corporations are increasingly tying their performance, and future to the unfounded notion of man-made global warming. To combat this,The Free Enterprise Action Fund (Ticker: FEAOX) submitted a letter to the SEC requesting they warn publicly-traded companies against making false and misleading statements related to global warming.
Here are some examples cited by the group:
- Exelon Corp. issued a media release and placed full-page advertisements in major newspapers on July 15, 2008 stating, “The science is overwhelming — climate change is happening now and human activity is the primary cause.”
- Lehman Brothers issued a report on climate change featuring the so-called “hockey stick” graph to support the notion that humans are causing global warming.
- The General Electric Company issued a “Call for Action” to “slow, stop and even reverse the damage of greenhouse gasses.”
- Toyota Motor Corp. states in a report, “When we drive a vehicle, it consumes fossil fuels and emits CO2, a major contributor to climate change.”
- Goldman Sachs states in a 2007 report, “By now, the dynamics of global warming are widely known, and we find no reason to dispute the scientific assumptions.”
- Caterpillar said in a public statement that, “We must take action now [to reduce carbon dioxide emissions] or risk serious harm to our planet.”
Recent developments that prove the science is ANYTHING but final:
- The American Physical Society, the leading professional society for American physicists announced in July 2008 on one of its websites that, “There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.” More here
- In May 2008, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine released a petition signed by more than 31,000 U.S. scientists stating, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will cause in the future, catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate…”
- Researchers belonging to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported in the science journal Nature (May 1) that, after adjusting their climate model to reflect actual sea surface temperatures of the last 50 years, “global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade,” since natural climate variation will drive global climate.
- Climate scientists reported in the December issue of the International Journal of Climatology, published by Britain’s Royal Meteorological Society, that observed temperature changes measured over the last 30 years don’t match well with temperatures predicted by the mathematical climate models relied on by the IPCC.
- A British judge ruled in October 2007 that Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” contained so many factual errors that a disclaimer was required to be shown to students before they viewed the film.
- A panel of the National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2006 that the “hockey stick” graph is not proof that human activity is linked to global warming.
India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change issued in June 2008 states, “No firm link between the documented [climate] changes described below and warming due to anthropogenic climate change has yet been established.” notinmygreenhouse.hypocrisy.com/2008/05/19/over-31000-scientists-reject-human-related-global-warming/
The Bureaucratic Thermostat
An editorial in the SF Gate has lit my fire this morning. In it, the anonymous author asserts that placing our eggs in the CO2 basket will halt climate change on earth. Give me a break. (John Stossel won’t sue me for that will he?)
Global warming can’t be solved by California alone, and mistakes here could set back efforts immeasurably.
Wow…the ego of the warming alarmist is staggering. Global warming can’t be solved by California because it’s not a problem humans can solve (or create). Just because we have recorded temperature fluctuations in the last century (that have also occurred for millions, dare I say, BILLIONS of years) it must be our fault. After all, isn’t everything our fault?
How can it be reasonable to think humans can keep the earth’s climate in a static state. It’s insane, it’s unrealistic, it’s impossible. Humans can’t create thunderstorms, stop tornadoes, relieve droughts, make it snow, change course of cyclones, cause earthquakes, or even predict any of these climatic events with much accuracy. Yet, I’m being told that a cap-and-trade program will save us all. WHAT?!?!? Bureaucracy is the new thermostat? I’m calling BS on that.
For consumers and business the biggest concern may be cost. Nichols, who was put in charge of the climate change issue by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, begged off predicting financial impacts for now.….Among the biggest boosters of the climate-change package are Silicon Valley financiers, who believe the field is ripe for growth.
Ya don’t say. You mean that the financiers who will profit greatly from a cap and trade scheme are in favor of it? Didn’t see that coming. How much has Al Gore made preaching his alarmism? That helps him afford his electric and natural gas bills that continue to climb.
Moving on…
There’s next to no doubt about global warming and its changes to weather, farming, health and habitation.
The author got this point right, but is on the wrong side of the fence. Earth’s climate has ALWAYS changed, and always will, regardless of how powerful the St of CA believes itself to be. The first half of the last century saw a temperature decrease. Many scientists were preaching doom and gloom of another Ice Age. Then there were a few decades of temperature increase…then a decade again of cooling….now predictions that the cooling will last another 20 years. This all happened while CO2 levels continue to rise. At least the plants are loving it.
Catching up with Shirley Golub
When I interviewed Shirley Golub on May 3, she was in the midst of challenging Nancy Pelosi for her Congressional seat in San Francisco’s 8th District. Three days prior to the election (May 31), I phoned to check in with Shirley just to how things were going with the election just around the corner.
D: So, Shirley, how are things going out there on the left coast?
S: Well, it’s pretty amazing! I have three days left to make an impact here.
D: What are you focusing on right now?
S: Well, right now, I have volunteers lined up to walk the neighborhoods and distribute flyers. I have another set of volunteers going out to put up signs. I also have volunteers from all over the country making last-minute phone calls on my behalf.
D: How has media coverage of your campaign been in the last month?
S: Well, it’s been disappointing. It’s disappointing enough when the mainstream media doesn’t provide coverage, in spite of the fact that I’m challenging the nation’s first female Speaker of the House. However, it’s especially disappointing when the progressive media is missing in action.
D: What do you think the reason is for the progressive media’s lack of attention?
S: I’m not sure. Maybe they think I’m running against Cindy Sheehan, which I’m not. The idea is to get as many progressives in as possible. If I win against Nancy Pelosi in the primary, then Cindy Sheehan will just run in another district. The whole idea was for us to run as a one-two punch, if you will. If I fail in my bid to win the primary, then Cindy will run against Nancy Pelosi in November as an Independent.
D: I know Cindy was in the process of getting the required number of signatures. How is that going?
S: Right now, she has about 2,000 of the 10,000 she needs to get on the ballot. I believe she has until August to get all the signatures she needs.
D: Has Nancy Pelosi responded to your challenge at all?
S: Not at all. She’s been running as though she doesn’t have an opponent. I’m sure she sees my candidacy as nothing other than an irritant.”
At this point, Shirley had to cut the conversation short. I assumed it was because there was so much to do with so little time remaining. We agreed to reconvene and continue the interview the day after the election. When I spoke with Shirley on June 4, the day after the election, I found out why she had to end our conversation so abruptly.
Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich appeared together in an ad on climate change that was paid for a group called the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization started by former Vice President Al Gore. Several people contacted Shirley encouraging her to file against Speaker Pelosi because they believed that the ad was a violation of the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, which limits the degree to which a candidate’s campaign can work with an independent group.
After investigating the situation and thinking about it for several days, Shirley decided it was not worth pursuing. As it turns out, Judicial Watch did file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said, “Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore may want to save the world, but they still have to follow federal law.” After a few more minutes on this topic, Shirley and I picked up the interview, albeit from a different standpoint.
D: So, the election is over. How did you do?
S: Well, the numbers show that I got 10.83% of the vote. That means that something like one in ten voted for me.
D: Considering what some of the presidential candidates did on a national level, I’d say you did pretty well.
S: Oh, thanks. It would probably have been higher had the voter turnout been better. It was pretty low. We tried to use the rent control issue to increase the number of people going to the polls. A bit more media coverage would also have helped.
D: And how did the rent control ballot question fare?
S: It did well. We managed to keep rent control in place.
D: What else has happened since the election? Any more excitement on any fronts?
S: Well, I just did a press conference for the California Impeachment Slate. We have about twenty candidates running across the state on an impeachment platform. We’re trying to get Monica Conyers to run for Congress in Detroit on an impeachment platform. Do you know who she is?
D: I could take a guess.
S: She’s the wife of Representative John Conyers, who is on the House Judiciary Committee, where impeachment is stalled right now. She is the President Pro Tempore of the Detroit City Council. In May of 2007, she placed a pro-impeachment resolution in front of her colleagues and it passed unanimously!
D: So, Shirley, now that this is all over, do you think you’ll stay in politics?
S: I don’t really know. Politics is a lot of work, even though it can be very rewarding. You know, my goal was always to push the impeachment issue, so I don’t know what the future holds for me beyond that. Right now, I’m just going to lay back a bit.
D: Well, thanks, Shirley for giving us a look inside your campaign and taking the time to talk to me now that the battle is over. I hope we can stay in touch.
S: Oh, you’re welcome and we will stay in touch. Talk to you later.
A few days after this interview was over, I received an email from Shirley. She forwarded an email that she had received from another member of the California Impeachment Slate who attached a story that had run in the Sacramento Bee Capitol Alert. The article stated that only 30% of registered voters gave Nancy Pelosi a positive job performance rating in a survey conducted at the end of May, just before the election. Who knows what might have happened had Shirley Golub’s campaign received more media coverage.
Even though Shirley Golub fell short in her attempt to remove Nancy Pelosi from office, her impeachment message was not lost on her constituents. Perhaps Shirley has lost this battle, but the war can still be won!
Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age
What would Canada know about Ice?
Welcome to the new Ice Age
Lorne Gunter, National Post
Published: Monday, February 25, 2008
Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.
The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January “was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average.”
China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.
There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.
In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.
And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its “lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.
The ice is back.
Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.
OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades.
But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter’s weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature.
And it’s not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma.
According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona — two prominent climate modellers — the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.
“We missed what was right in front of our eyes,” says Prof. Russell. It’s not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind’s effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt.
But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming.
Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”
He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.
The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.
It’s way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it’s way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.
“Unendangered” Polar Bears Threat for Eskimo Food Source
Polar bear populations have increased by five times since the 1950s and 1960s leaving many “confused” by the U.S. Department of Interior’s decision to list polar bears as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act,. Polar bear numbers have dramatically increased to at lest 25,000 bears now from an estimated 5,000 then. There are so many polar bears in some areas their hunting is depleting seals a main food source from native Eskimos.
The decision to do so appears to be based entirely on “unproven computer models.” William P. Horn, former assistant secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks in 1985-1988 (responsible for the ESA program) said, “It would be a mistake to list the presently healthy and sustainable polar bear populations as a threatened species under the ESA.”
In His so-called documentary Al Gore shows a polar bear struggling to stay afloaton an ice cube sized iceberg but, the scene was later to be proved it was contrived just as the use of another movie’s Styrofoam glaciers calving off icebergs to “prove” his claims which was completely false.
Decade of Global Cooling Called Temporary
Scientists at Germany’s Kiel University predict the Earth’s temperature will stay roughly the same in the coming decade as the planet’s natural climate cycle enters a cooling phase. But thereafter, the researchers expect temperatures to begin rising quickly by about 2020. – unless they don’t. The forecast centers around the ocean’s natural temperature cycles, called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), which is closely associated with the warm currents that carry heat from the tropics to European shores. “One message from our study is that in the short term, you can see changes in the global mean temperature that you might not expect given the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),” Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University told BBC News.
Read the entire article in the Journal Science.
Greenpeace Founder Quits, Calls “Pop Environmentists” Obstacle
Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder, has become a harsh critique abruptly leaving it after leading the group from 18-years because of what he calls “pop-environmentalism.” Specifically he cites fellow directors who without any formal science training labeled nuclear energy “evil” while going on to chemicals and biology and genetics. He calls it “pop-environmentalism” that uses misinformation, fear and sensationalism to deal with people on the emotional level rather than intellectual level.
Moore favors nuclear power because of its low cost ($1.68 per kilowatt hour) and reliability. Moore says natural gas cost three times as much (and where most of the electrical cost increases have come from); wind cost five times as much and solar ten times as much. Moore calls solar power completely ridiculous.
Mooreexplains nuclear waste recycling reduced it by 90% makinh it disposal manageable. He wonders how many Americans know half of the U. S. nuclear energy comes from dismantled Russian nuclear war heads? He speaks of a nuclear renaissance to replace coals fired power plants, and debunking the misbegotten idea nuclear reactors produce weapons which they do not. Moore labels the environmental movement an “obstacle.”
Excerpted and edited from NEWSWEEK, April 21, 2008, page 42.